AIBU to feel hurt after my stepdaughter was edited out?

[Embod9947]

So I’ve just been on a big family holiday with my mum, brother, his partner, their kids, my sister and her family and me, my partner, my kids and my step daughter. On the holiday we did a number of family photos as due to distance we do not get together very often. One of the family photos was my mum with all the grandchildren, including my step daughter (who been in my life for 11 years, since she was 4). I’ve just discovered my sister and mum have edited the photo to remove my step daughter from it and then my mum posted it online. Am I unreasonable to be incredibly hurt by this?

I think it would be more understanding to ask at the time with lots of photos being taken, to have one with just the biological grandchildren but to edit a photo to remove her, without speaking to you first is really not nice. Although i can see that someone may think the opposite that the child may be more upset to be excluded on the day.

You can’t force it - clearly you can’t as there are posters on here who choose not to love.
I would expect - hope - someone I love would care for other people I love - that’s the very nature of family. A big messy group of people who love each other.
What I find deeply sad is all the people who look at a child and weigh up their worth - is it worth loving them?

To your mum, your boyfriend's daughter isn't her grandchild. She's her daughter's boyfriend's child.

In the same way that marriage means nothing to you, your boyfriend's daughter doesn't count as her grandchild (I was about to type "means nothing to her" instead of "doesn't count as her grandchild "but that sounds unlikely to be true). Doesn't mean she doesn't like her; doesn't mean she doesn't enjoy her company or want to go on holiday with her; doesn't mean she doesn't understand what she means to you.

She's quite clear how she defines her family. It also happens to be factually true. If you have a problem with how she defines her family, you should take it up with her. Perhaps she think this relationship will break up too, in which case she wouldn't see this child again. Not exactly a grandchild-grandmother relationship, is it.

Or choice doesn’t come into it. You can’t force love, a particular type of love, or the strength of a love, into existence.

That’s such a mean-spirited view.

My father was a widower with a 3 year-old daughter when he met my mother and they married 6 months later. Both his parents were already dead, as were his siblings, so my half-sister had no blood relatives other than her father. My mother's parents took this motherless child, no blood relative of theirs, to their hearts and never once treated her differently from the four sisters who joined her over the years. To them she was as much their granddaughter as their daughter's children and she in return loved them dearly for the rest of their lives. I can't get my head round the idea that you would edit a child out of a photo when she has been part of your own daughter's family life for so long.

You are totally right to be hurt. My mother died when I was a baby and my father remarried when I was 4. My stepmother was not a great mother - but no worse to me than to my two half siblings (and step and half were just not used in our family). My stepmother's parents and wider family fully accepted me - in fact my brother and sister were always quite jealous that I was quite obv Grandad's favourite, because I had built a relationship with him before he became ill and grumpy.

It's a horrible thing to do. I've never understood the idea that biological relationships are superior to others. Fortunately, my family members are not so closed-minded, as the extended family includes stepchildren and children who were adopted, as well as biological children.

I often think about people with these ideas of "blood trumps all" when I read about the many, many situations (made much more common with the advent of DNA testing) when individuals find out that the man they called Dad was actually not their biological father after all. Does that mean that the parent/child relationship was inferior to a biological connection? Of course not.

Reasonable in that if your mum wanted a photo with only the biological kids, she should have taken one rather than edit SD out.

I'm not convinced that OP would prefer this option tbh. Are you married and are you raising her / does she live with you? There's a difference between a partners child, and a step child no matter how long the relationship is.

I’ll choice my heart over someone else everytime.

My children and their children.

Anyone else can be kept polite and loved from afar.

Life has hurt me enough.

Well you got the “thoughtless” part correct.

Wow! Is it because she hadn't got the other parent's permission? Even so, they could've picked a different picture? My brother has 2 step kids who've been in our lives for 12 years and they get treated and included exactly the same as his younger biological son

What miserable small lives some people lead. So willing to put up walls and exclude children. The good thing is there are lots of posters telling of love and acceptance.
To be honest OP perhaps you should feel sorry for your DM with her rules about blood and love. You are the one with children who love you and you love them. Pity not anger might be the way forward.

Reasonable in that if your mum wanted a photo with only the biological kids, she should have taken one rather than edit SD out.

I think the opposite - your mum wanted a photo of her grandchildren, but thought it looked unkind to ask DSD to step out? Your mum may not see DSD as her grandchild - she isn’t. That doesn’t mean she doesn’t like her/isn’t really fond of her/wants to exclude her.

Aww this is lovely. What an amazing perspective.

That’s terrible. I hope you can protect your stepdaughter from finding out about this.

I wonder why your mother thought it was acceptable to do this and put it out for public and family consumption but she didn’t think it was acceptable to say ‘Melissa, can you go and stand out of shot please because I’d like a photograph of everyone else that you aren’t in’.

Prior to this did you feel she treated SD the same as her biological grandchildren?

You can see from some of the replies here, so many adults can be absolute cunts about blended families and get a proper kick out of twisting themselves in knots finding ways to justify making children feel like they don’t belong.

they will never admit it, they will find ways to make themselves feel justified and remain guilt free in their head about treating children, who have no say in their family dynamics, like absolute garbage.

Has your step daughter seen this on social media yet? Because I assume she will find it...

If it were me I would ask my mum to take it down. If she had chosen from two group photos, one with and without your SD that would be hurtful but could be explained away if necessary. This seems really hurtful to me, and honestly a bit spiteful.

Your mum and sister can think what they like, but to post it to where your SD can presumably find it is horrid.

Oh come on after 11 years she’s the stepmother. It would be a bit sad if she didn’t see her as that after being in each others lives so long and seeing her grow up.

Marriage may well count for nothing to you, but she’s not your stepdaughter all the same.

It's the sort of thing my horrible mother would have done.
Not that the occasion arose but she'd happily have excluded step relatives from photos, presents etc. Because "They were nothing to do with her"

@Embod9947 maybe she didn’t feel it was her place to claim your step daughter as her grandchild. Your step daughter may not agree that your mum is her nan and your mum didn’t want to rock the applecart just incase. Does your step daughter have her own biological grandparents?

I’d have to ask her why she did it. If I was feeling particularly pissed off i’d reply to the SM photo directly with the original photo and ask why she edited out a child.